I am literal goo. My intestines clench painfully at the idea that we might’ve been overheard by someone other than Darcy. Molly, meanwhile, is only toughening. “So, what are you, on our side?” she asks, in compliance to speak at a regular volume. “You weren’t talking this bluntly in the cabin this morning.”

“Well, that’s ’cuz there might be snitches in our cabin.”

“So, are we supposed to just stay here forever?” I ask, forcing myself to speak above a whisper. In my paranoia, I imagine Briggs, Ramona, and the Reverend all hovering behind my shoulder, ready to bop me with a rolled-up newspaper.

“Connor!” Darcy giggles, shoving me like I’ve said something hilarious. Gray-shirted staff members sneer in our direction as they dump their trays with the lunch ladies and exit the Gulch. Darcy has put me so on edge, I want to crawl up the ceiling like Spider-Man and hide in the rafters. “You arrived ready to stir the pot, didn’t you? I couldn’t believe my ears last night when you started mouthing back to the Reverend about Ricky Hannigan, of all people.”

Noise and oxygen leave the Gulch, and my attention narrows to a pinhole—it’s only Darcy and me left in the whole universe. “What do you know about Ricky?”

“You could probably tell me a lot more than I could tell you.” Darcy pulls a folded wad of paper from her pocket. “Nightlight is just like school, only you’re watched more closely. Question is: In school, you ever get into trouble? Like, if you were passed a note,”—she slides the folded paper across the table, her fingers pressed on top—“would you unfold it out in the open for people to see, or would you find a way to read it later, nice and private?”

My heart whams against my ribcage. I knew the answer to her question halfway through the asking. Vicky and I are masters of texting during class. I could text under my desk without once looking away from the teacher—never made a single autocorrect error and my phone was never confiscated. The only person to ever successfully separate me from my phone was Mom, and that was only because I decided to stop keeping secrets about myself. A mistake I won’t repeat. With unblemished confidence, I say, “I don’t get caught.”

Darcy lifts her fingers from the folded note. Immediately, I drop Ricky’s Playbill on top of it and slide both items back to the safety of my lap. She scoops our piled-high plates into her arms, and we nod to each other. Molly doesn’t know what to make of either of us.